Parents: The anti-vaccine Vacci-Nation Situation, part 4 For the last week, you've read the latest news - and my latest predictions - about one of the biggest evils on the American medical landscape: Mass vaccinations. As you'll recall, one of my extrapolations of this false panacea of medicine had to do with a new vaccine that's all the rage - one designed to prevent most cases of HPV (genital warts) in young women, along with the subsequent development of cervical cancer this viral infection is linked to… My argument is that while it's all fine and good to prevent infections of a common STD and its often-cancerous aftermath, there's a "point of diminishing returns" in the equation if the vaccine gives young women a false sense of security about the safety of sex. This may expose them to all kinds of other diseases, some deadly (and getting deadlier). But there are some "wild card" factors in this equation, too - things that could either mitigate the urge among young, naïve people to copulate with abandon OR temper that very same urge: Things like schooling, parenting, and one other influence I alluded to in the last Daily Dose… I'm talking about popular culture. If you've been a reader of mine for any length of time at all, you know I've long lamented the steady decline in the themes and messages in a lot of modern cultural influences - things like movies, TV, magazines, music (if you can call it that) and the over-publicized antics of spoiled celebrities. Now here's how this dovetails into the vaccine equation… In the absence of strong, morally principled parenting - and schooling that minds the lines between what's proper curriculum and what's the responsibility of those parents to teach their kids - young, sexually curious adults are taking their cues on how to act from all the wrong places: Rap "music" lyrics and videos, movies, mom's Cosmopolitan mags, and whatever they learn from predators that prowl Internet chat-rooms and the MySpace profiles all their hyper-sexed, Ritalin-addicted friends are posting… What's worse, they also learn how to act from what they're seeing Paris, Britney, Lindsay, and all the other pop-tarts doing on TV! (If you don't know who these people are, or are clueless about MySpace, you need to plug in to understand your kids and grandkids - but be forewarned, the journey's not for the faint of heart). Think today's kids aren't REALLY so impressionable that they'd take their cues from a bunch of spoiled, talent-less Hollywood party-girls and gangster-rap stars? According to recent UK Daily Mail article, researchers asked a random survey of 1,500 British kids aged 10 and under (the answers would be similar for American kids, I promise you), "What do you think is the very best thing in the world?" Ranked from 1 to 10 by greatest number of responses, their answers were:
1) Being a celebrity
2) Good looks
3) Being rich
4) Being healthy
5) Pop music
6) Families
7) Friends
8) Nice food
9) Watching movies
And last on the list… 10) God Take a look at the top three answers: Celebrity, beauty, and wealth. And also notice how "pop music" ranks above family, friends, and God… Still think kids' sensibilities about life, love, sex, and what's important aren't being shaped heavily by hyper-sexed popular culture? Bottom line: With STDs, sexual objectification, and victimization rampant - and with schools promoting sex as though it's civic duty - it's more important than ever for parents to set strong boundaries that instill sexual temperance and age-appropriate behavior in their kids. Instead, we have parents steering children, either by first-hand example or by tacit approval of their over-eroticized young lifestyles, into having risky sex early and often… If only we could come up with a vaccine against THIS kind of "cancer." | 
